Cherise’s high heeled boots clicked more heavily than usual against the marble tile of the Avalon View Luxury Apartments’ lobby, as she was weighted down by several bags of groceries. She wasn’t accustomed to doing her own food shopping, but the service she normally used...
Every neighborhood has one. That creepy, old house that nobody wants to go near. They’re usually surrounded by overgrown trees and bushes. Parts of the siding have fallen to the ground due to neglect from whoever lives there. Dusty, old windows around the house only...
Every day on the bus ride to school through the country, I would see it: the Mommet. That’s what we all called it, but no one seemed to know who had called it that first. The Mommet was an old scarecrow, sitting atop the shallow...
I live in a small coal town on the Ohio river. Our community is pretty well crime free. Since we’re on the river, most disappearances are chalked up to people drowning and getting washed downstream. I want to keep track of my research, and this...
Nash paused for a moment to look up from the unlit, pothole-ridden street to the crumbling shell of an office building towering over him, just to make sure he’d really seen it. And there it was again; a flicker of white and grey light from a...
My daughter Dharma is six. She’s rowdy and fearless. Dauntless, even. Since she’s been old enough to walk, she’s been drawn to the water. There’s one particular spot in the lake that she’s always been drawn to. We live in the woods on the edge...
I live in a small town in America’s heartland where nothing much ever happens. People go to work and go to church, and everyone pretty much knows everyone else. We all shop at the same stores send our kids to the same schools. There are...
There are some things that you struggle to bring into your life. Then there are the things that you do your damnedest to eradicate from your existence. My name is Miguel Ramirez. My friends call me Chico de la Perdición. You heard that right. “Doomguy.” As long...
“Be careful what you wish for, you may receive it.” - Anonymous Part I Without, the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlor of Laburnum villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly. Father and son were at chess, the former, who possessed...
The screams were the hardest part. Standing on the dust-covered hill looking down to the container in the darkness, the cries rose up through the air like a sea of Chinese lanterns ready to be extinguished. They did not bring light; only grief. For Larry, this...
Brenna had been preparing for this fight for months. She had thought she was ready, convinced herself that she could handle it. Now, as the last few miles ticked by on her car’s odometer, the leaden weight sitting in her stomach told her otherwise. She thought...
Throw another log on the fire. That’ll keep us warm for a while, keep the darkness at bay. Perhaps we should pass the time with another story by the campfire. Just long enough to see us through past midnight. I’ve told you stories before of...
A legend says that on the wind of the North Atlantic, there is carried a key to a strange land. A place of unequaled beauty and unparalleled nightmare. For too long I thought those stories the product of whimsical minds. Lazy lips espousing wishful dreams...
Randy Wense had been parked on the corner of Water and 3rd for the last fifteen minutes listening to the newest reports. The radio presenter was relaying a statement that the special agent in charge of the investigation had made earlier that day. He was explaining how...
I know people that would literally murder me if they knew I put this on the internet. But I don’t see many other options. If I go straight to the cops odds are I’LL get blamed for what happened to my friends and get thrown...
Dr. Allen returned to his office and found Donald Anthony Lowe; male, 24, biochemistry student (all according to the patient profile that Allen’s nubile and exceptionally talented receptionist had insisted the man fill out in the waiting room) looking out of the 14th-floor window of...
Unconsciously, I must have seen it from the start–that run down two-story house, with its paint-peeled porch that lorded over an equally neglected lawn. The rusted, chain-link fence that bowed and dipped in places, tangled in weeds. I mean, had it registered, I would have...
Hugh stood at the pulpit, his hands loosely holding each side. Beads of sweat stood out on his wrinkled forehead despite the chill seeping into the old church. Errant drafts of winter wind entered from beneath the eaves and sporadically flowed over his balding head. “What...
A horrible curse befell my girlfriend and now she can only eat human meat...
When you have been a priest for as long as I have, you start to notice patterns in people. When a parishioner approaches, I can already guess what they want to ask me by their body language or the way their eyes flicker to meet...
